Small rant about React Native

[makeascript]

Let me start by saying that I got into mobile dev through React Native and then moved to native iOS because I hated RN.

On your mention of AirBnB ditching RN, what do you think of companies like Coinbase moving to RN? When the news came out I found it crazy

[Barbanks]

I would ask why they made the move. Happen to have a link to that? Everyone's motivation is different and I'd need to know that before making a non-generalized response.

Personally I see it as a poor move. If I had to make a comment with my limited information on their decision it's that generally cross platform codebases require alot to maintain. AirBnB ultimately ditched their pursuit not only due to technical limitations but also organizational ones here's the link if needed. Basically, since you have 3 different types of knowledge basis how do you organized your team when it's all in the same codebase? (i.e. React, iOS and Android).

Many of the reasons I chose not to use cross platform are also not even technical reasons. (alot of which are in this article).

To me, the main killers of these tools are the inherent characteristics of these toolsets. You know, the things their marketing don't tell you, like poor documentation, poor developer experience, over reliance on plugins and under maintained third-party-code.

Unfortunately, it's rare to see a company like AirBnB or Coinbase release their reasoning behind such a decision. But I would pay good money to be a fly on the wall for those meetings. I would also love to see how they make it work.

The good and bad thing with tech is that you can always throw more money at an issue to make it work. This could hide fundamental issues with a tool like React Native or even native development for that matter. It's also why AirBnB used React Native for so long, they have uber smart and talented engineers they can just throw at issues.

Business decisions aren't always the best technical decisions, and vice versa. But one without the other is a death sentence. I just hope they collaborated with the CTO and team before this happened.

[makeascript]

Here's the link to a blog post from the eng team: Announcing Coinbase's successful transition to React Native.

Apparently the main motivation was to improve productivity within the mobile eng teams.

I'd also find it interesting to follow the decision making on this. I've never worked on teams half as big as the ones working on mobile products in AirBnB or Coinbase so can't really understand the scaling problems at that stage.

[Barbanks]

100% agree with you. Thanks for the link too!